IN BORNEAN FORESTS [chap. 



are capable of surviving a long immersion during the periodical 

 annual floods. Analogous cases occur in the low regions of the 

 Brazils, about the mouth of the Amazons. Some of the plants 

 of the lakes show perhaps a certain correlation with mangroves 

 in their habitus and manner of growth ; but the water was too 

 deep to allow me to see how their roots behaved. Instead of being 

 seashore or estuarine, they might be described as lake-shore trees. 

 Of true marsh plants the only species I met with at Ruma Segrat 

 was Limnophila sessiliflora, Bl. I saw no trace of any Nympheacece, 

 Hydrocharids, pond-weeds, or other really palustrine species, nor 

 any of those plants which in marshes contribute to form peat. 

 Not a Graminacea, not a Cyperacea ; plants, it is true, which, had 

 they grown there, would have been then under water. The nearly 

 total absence in Borneo of floating aquatic plants must be attributed 

 to the facility with which waters flow and circulate, the constant 

 and copious rainfall rendering stagnant pools an impossibility. 



I found the Dyak house at Lampei contained more dogs 

 than human beings, and at night it was hard to sleep on account 

 of the noise they made. They were small, famished, miserable 

 creatures, all skin and bone, and were allowed to roam about freely 

 at night. The result was that they played havoc with my already 

 scarce provisions, managing to gnaw through a rotang basket in 

 which I had placed my tinned meats, and although these latter 

 were unopened, they bit through the tins, and tasting the liquid 

 which ran out, carried them off, scattering them all over the house. 

 They even gnawed the cork stoppers of some bottles, and one 

 of them went so far as to adopt my hat as his kennel. When my 

 cook, Kisoi, awoke, and discovered the destruction they had caused, 

 he took his revenge by serving out to them morsels of rice in which 

 he had put doses of the arsenical soap I used for preserving animal 

 skins. We never knew the results of this early breakfast on the 

 poor brutes, for when the sun rose we were well on our way towards 

 the Kantu. 



As we again crossed Danau Lamadjan, I noted the paucity 

 of birds. The only marsh-loving species I saw was a white egret 

 perched on the top of a tree. The natives, however, told me that 

 when the waters are low the place is populated with hosts of shore 

 birds which come to breed there. I did not see a single monkey 

 or anv other mammal. In these localities a long narrow-snouted 

 crocodile, Tomistoma Schlegclii, Mull., ought to be found. It 

 was long thought peculiar, and one of the characteristic reptiles 

 of Borneo, but it has" been since found in Sumatra and in the Malay 

 Peninsula. I never had the good fortune to meet with it, but it 

 is not infrequent in Sarawak, especially on the Sadong. Its nearest 

 ally is the well-known garial or gavial of India. 1 



1 " Garial " in Hindustani means " a fish-eater." It is probable that 



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